Annihilation

Blood gushed forth as searing pain tore through Lu Yuan's entire body.

Though he had dodged most of the Flesh Spears, four had still found their mark—two buried in his abdomen, one in his chest, and one in his left leg.

Green veins pulsed along the shafts, tendrils of living tissue creeping outward, burrowing deeper into his body. At the same time, sinister green flames ignited along the wounds, threatening to consume him entirely.

Lu Yuan's face drained of color. Brow furrowed, he hastily channeled the Aberration flames into his inner universe while activating Sands of Time to heal himself—establishing a fragile equilibrium against the flames' corrosive destruction. Simultaneously, he deployed spatial force and every other power at his disposal to restrain the flesh tendrils, gradually forcing the Flesh Spears outward.

His expression was grim. He glanced down at the Flesh Spears still squirming, trying to take root in his body, then looked toward the area where the bronze light was slowly fading. Something didn't add up. The Wheel of Fate granted him precognitive ability in combat—how had it failed to predict the Flesh Spears' attack?

It wasn't just the Wheel of Fate. His cultivation had reached War God level, he possessed ten Divine Grade genes, and his Mental Power was extraordinarily potent, granting him formidable sensory awareness.

Yet even so, he hadn't sensed the danger until the Flesh Spears were practically on top of him.

*How did he manage that?*

The sudden reversal stunned everyone—Garton, Kro, and the rest of the Blood of Machinery, as well as Adela watching from afar.

Kro had been calculating his escape. Now, seeing this, his eyes lit up.

"What?! The human is badly wounded?!"

Garton clenched his fists, a grin spreading across his face.

"I knew it! My Lord isn't so easily killed! It looks like My Lord is going to win!"

The Mechanical Battle Saints, whose faith had been wavering moments ago, broke into smiles.

"I told you... how could a human possibly defeat My Lord?"

"This human is probably the most powerful being in the entire universe. Once he's dead, no one can stop us! Aberration will devour the cosmos whole!"

While Garton, Kro, and the other Blood of Machinery members celebrated, Adela's heart sank like a stone.

His face was ashen as he stared at Lu Yuan, impaled by the Flesh Spears, fists clenched tight with tension.

*What do I do? What do I do?! Someone this powerful—is even he going to lose? If he falls, who else could possibly defeat that monster?!*

Emotions warred across his face, his gaze flickering with indecision.

*Should I try to save him?*

*Could I even succeed?*

Adela glanced toward the Blood of Machinery's War Gods and felt the weight settle deeper. He was only a Battle Saint. The enemy had two War God-level powerhouses plus numerous Battle Saints of their own. How could he possibly mount a rescue?

And that monster was still there. How could he snatch someone from right under its nose?

*Why hasn't Lord Mados arrived yet?!*

Adela burned with anxiety.

The bronze light slowly faded, revealing the scene within. Amid fractured space, only the King of Flesh's head and neck remained—a grisly remnant drifting through the spatial storm, drenched in blood.

Grievously wounded, his aura had weakened to a whisper.

His green eyes burned with deranged malevolence, locked onto Lu Yuan.

The King of Flesh forced himself onward, drawing a deep breath as he slowly wrenched free of the spatial storm and drifted out through the dimensional rift, back into open space. Once free of the storm's relentless assault, his flesh began to writhe and regenerate.

But the recovery was far slower than before.

The King of Flesh fixed Lu Yuan with a savage grin.

"I planned to strike you with the Flesh Spears while you were busy attacking me. I didn't expect your destructive power to be that overwhelming... I genuinely thought I was going to die. But I survived—and you took the hit."

Lu Yuan's expression was cold as he watched the King of Flesh, continuing to push the Flesh Spears from his body. He spoke slowly.

"How did your Flesh Spears evade my perception?"

The King of Flesh's aura was still unstable and his wounds still demanded recovery. He didn't mind chatting a while longer.

This Child of the Cosmos was different from those he'd encountered before. Genuinely strong. Killing someone of this caliber—that was what brought him pleasure. And personally dooming the universe that had produced such a warrior filled him with a profound sense of accomplishment.

Watching Spirit Power surge around Lu Yuan as he struggled to expel the Flesh Spears, the King of Flesh sneered.

"Save your strength. Even someone as powerful as you would need a full day to expel the Flesh Spears—and you won't last that long! As for how I evaded your senses?" He laughed. "I am not a native existence of this universe. Using the power of Aberration to deceive the universe's own perception—even the perception of the Laws themselves—is no simple feat, but it can be done. Did you really think I was just sitting there defending myself?"

As he spoke, his chaotic aura gradually stabilized. His body, which had been reduced to a head and neck, had already regenerated down to his chest, and his presence grew stronger with every inch of flesh restored.

The King of Flesh regarded Lu Yuan's icy expression and continued.

"The flesh inside that fortress—what did you think it was? It was part of my body. If I had fully matured before descending, I could have put it to far greater use. Unfortunately..."

His eyes gleamed with frigid menace as he bared his teeth.

"I never imagined this universe harbored someone like you, and you've thoroughly ruined my plans. But in the end, you'll still die by my hand."

Lu Yuan heard this and swept his gaze across the void. Not even the metallic wreckage of the Blood of Machinery remained. Their battle had been so ferocious that he'd assumed the metal fortress had been utterly annihilated, its fleshy growths along with it.

He hadn't expected the King of Flesh to have concealed it all.

Lu Yuan narrowed his eyes. His understanding of Aberration was still insufficient—he hadn't anticipated such a technique.

But...

His crystalline eyes regarded the King of Flesh, and a smile crossed his face.

"I see."

In the next instant, a terrifying wave of Spirit Power erupted from within Lu Yuan's body—then detonated. His flesh disintegrated to dust in the blink of an eye.

The Flesh Spears were obliterated along with him, reduced to clumps of gore dripping with green ichor.

As the Flesh Spears shattered, the King of Flesh let out a stifled groan. His complexion worsened, his recently recovered aura dimming sharply. Even his regenerating flesh went still.

The Flesh Spears were clearly linked directly to the King of Flesh. Their destruction dealt him yet another devastating blow.

But the King of Flesh wasn't focused on that.

His eyes went wide as he stared at the space where Lu Yuan had vanished, disbelief written across what remained of his face.

*Self-detonation?*

*Why would he self-destruct?!*

The answer came a moment later. Where Lu Yuan had been reduced to ash, his form was being traced back into existence, line by line—as though an invisible hand were painting him onto the canvas of the void.

The King of Flesh's eyes bulged, and he roared in fury.

"The power of time! You've mastered it to this degree?!"

Lu Yuan reformed completely. Free of the Flesh Spears, his Spirit Power surged once more, restoring his body to its original state.

He glanced at the screaming King of Flesh and smiled.

"You didn't think I was just making conversation, did you?"

While engaging the King of Flesh in dialogue, Lu Yuan had wrapped himself entirely within Sands of Time, creating a Temporal Domain that encompassed only himself. After self-detonating, the Flesh Spears—foreign objects within his body—were destroyed along with his physical form. Then he simply reversed time to restore himself.

He hadn't anticipated that destroying the Flesh Spears would wound the creature a second time. A welcome bonus.

The King of Flesh quickly deduced the reason, his expression twisting with rage. Even if he had known the Child of the Cosmos's plan in advance, he lacked the strength to prevent it. Every scrap of his remaining power was devoted to regeneration. Whether he saw it coming or not, the outcome would have been the same.

Lu Yuan, of course, had no idea what was going through the King of Flesh's mind.

His expression was cold, Spirit Power roiling around him. In the next instant he vanished, reappearing at the King of Flesh's side.

Alarm flashed across the creature's face as it tried to dodge, but its power was nearly spent. Its body had barely regenerated, and the backlash from the Flesh Spears' destruction had crippled it further. Its speed was a fraction of what it had been—evasion was impossible.

**Shing!**

A flash of blade light carved deep into the King of Flesh's skull, splitting it open. Blood erupted from the wound.

"AAARGH! Damn you!"

The King of Flesh howled, diverting what little power it had left into defense. But such feeble defenses meant nothing against Lu Yuan, who wielded the power of time to keep himself perpetually at peak condition.

Each strike landed harder than the last, tearing ever-greater wounds into the creature's ravaged form. In mere moments, the King of Flesh's body was riddled with gruesome gashes.

Then Lu Yuan flashed a smile at the mangled creature and vanished.

The King of Flesh gained a moment's respite, but felt no relief whatsoever. Its dimming green eyes turned toward the Spirit Cannons arrayed in the distance.

Bronze beams surged forward, flooding its vision in an instant, swallowing it whole. The King of Flesh's broken remnants were annihilated under the devastating tide of Spirit Power.

"Child of the Cosmos! Mark my words! Next time, I will come in my true body and kill you myself!"

The King of Flesh's dying will, laced with terrible malice, pulsed outward and reached Lu Yuan's consciousness.

The smile faded from Lu Yuan's face, his brow creasing.

*This was merely a Descended Avatar, and it was already this powerful... If his true body came, how strong would he be?*

*And he wasn't even the strongest entity in the Aberrant Beast Mother Nest... What about the Mother of Aberration, who stood above him?*

A heavy weight settled over Lu Yuan's thoughts.

After a moment of contemplation, he couldn't devise any concrete countermeasure. For now, his best course was to fully temper Fantasy Manifestation, then achieve comprehension of the Laws. Beyond that, he would have to take things one step at a time.

Lu Yuan exhaled slowly and turned his gaze toward the Blood of Machinery members in the distance.

Events had shifted too rapidly. Garton, Kro, and the other Blood of Machinery powerhouses stared toward the fading Spirit Power, faces frozen, still struggling to process what had just happened.

Seeing this, a pleasant smile slowly spread across Lu Yuan's face.

Because of these people, a monster like the King of Flesh had appeared in the universe...

It was time to deal with them properly.